Featured Articles

Old Cranbrookians finally meet!

Old Cranbrookians Geoff Piper (left 1966) finally met up with Nick Helyer (left 1965) at his home in Dungog, New South Wales. Nick is a retired naval Commadore and is also Captain of the local volunteer fire brigade.

School Photo - 1955

Our deepest thanks and congratulations to Mr Chris Chubb for meticulously researching the names of all those shown in the picture and bringing to the life the history of those that were in attendance here in 1955. This is such a wonderful piece of history to have and we are eternally grateful for all the hard work that went into it. Thank you.

OC Dinner 2016

The OCA Annual Dinner held on Friday 18th November at Simpsons in the Strand, London, was a great success with over 100 OC’s in attendance and over 50% under the age of 40!

Guest of Honour of was Alex Presnell and his wife Maggie with the Head, John Weeds and the senior four of Tom Battson, Isla Leckie, Macsen Lambert and Olivia Stevens as the newest and welcome guests. Alex recounted tales from his 25 years of service at Cranbrook, ranging from PE and Geography teaching, to Head of Allan and Rammell houses, plus a few tales from some legendary sports tours. Thanks to Alex and Maggie for all they have done for the school and we wish them both a very happy retirement.​

Big re-union groups of OC’s from 2011, 2006, 1996, 1986 and 1976 era’s filled the room and as the evening drew to a close, the volume grew as fond memories of times and more importantly friends, were recounted. Next year’s OCA dinner will be on Friday 17th November 2017 at Simpsons-in-the-Strand. ​

OC Rio Silver Medal winner comes to visit!

Congratulations to Ruaridh McConnochie (Class of 2010) for winning a silver medal at Rio 2016 as part of GBs Rugby 7's team. We are remarkably proud to have welcomed Ruaridh, back to Cranbrook School today (27th September). He was a fantastic student while here, particularly committed to his rugby and the boarding life of Cranbrook School as a proud member of Rammell House.​Ruaridh began the day by regaling the boarding community with tales of his time in Rammell and how boarding here really helped his development, before joining the leaders of our 1st XV and Dr Weeds for a reception in Barham House. During the course of the afternoon, Ruaridh kindly volunteered to help inspire our Year 9 rugby players with some specialised coaching, before helping our 1st XV prepare for their big game against St Johns Leatherhead.

​OCs turn out for the first ever Basketball Match

Well done to all the old boys who turned out on the evening of 7th July for the school's first ever OCs basketball match. Lots of old faces as the OCs lead by the effervescent Mike Jelly won 55-49. Great fun had by all.​Can the OCs repeat this performance in the 2017 match? Any one wanting to play please contact Coach Coleman

​Old Cranbrookian volunteers to help with the refugee crisis

Cicely Freeman, Yr11 WG, provides us with an insight into the refugee crisis with the below write-up:

On the 1st of March my older sister, Chloe (a former Cranbrook student - Class of 2012) and her boyfriend Jack, volunteered to travel to Lesvos, a Greek island in the northern Aegean Sea off the coast of Turkey. She will be spending a month there in total with Jack and has already spent two weeks helping deal with the refugee crisis. Meanwhile this is all during her third year of University where she is doing an Erasmuz in Munich, studying Chemistry in german. She is working with a charity called Skipchen, who are a group of anti-food waste campaigners based in Bristol. The Skipchen volunteers have been funded by the Help Refugees group in order to build a field kitchen in Lesbos and cook hot meals for refugees heading for Europe. On average they cook between 2000 and 3000 meals a day, with Chloe and Jack having regular night shifts from 1am-9am.

BDFM (Better Days for Moria) camp was set up by volunteers in November 2015 because the official camp couldn’t handle the vast number of refugees arriving, causing horrendous conditions. Since then it has morphed and grown and every night there are around 700+ sleeping in BDFM and 2500+ in the official camp, but it increases rapidly each day.

With the boarders being closed for a while, it is beginning to look more like a fixed settlement. However, it is meant to be used as a transit camp; meaning people would only stay a few days and then travel along the route via Athens and Balkan. No one knows what the future will hold…​Lastly I want to conclude with Chloe’s words sent this morning: “Last night police began random arrests of Pakistanis to deport them back to Turkey, but no one in the camp was informed. There is so much confusion for everyone. This situation gets more dire every day. Living and working with the same people can be quite tense and tonight I have a night shift. P.S I passed another chemistry exam!"